Bad news for Peter Hook: His absence from the latest New Order reunion, which greatly impressed at an overflowing Greek Theatre Sunday night in the band’s first Southern California appearance since Coachella 2005 … well, it wasn’t terribly noticeable that he was gone.

His presence was missed, for sure. These pioneers of post-punk and dance-rock have never been as kinetic in person as their perpetual-motion music is in any space, so bearded Hooky stepping to the edge of the stage with his bass slung low, an almost iconic pose, had long been an energizing sight. By comparison, guitarist and vocalist Bernard Sumner has always been something of a shy, stationary anti-frontman, as his very solid but mostly static performance at this one-off L.A. gig reminded.

Apart from endearingly busting out some moves during “Bizarre Love Triangle” and hollering out “COME ON!” to get the crowd to sing louder during “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – the end of a tasteful encore tribute to Ian Curtis and the memory of Joy Division, the band that begat New Order – Sumner was his usual stock-still self, singing intellectual songs of love as it is when it was.

Similarly, his occasional comments, though sincerely heartfelt, were so soft-spoken that they were barely audible. I was fortunately close enough to see his face clearly amid the ever-billowing smoke and eyes-crossing display of lights, and I still couldn’t make out half of what he said. I can’t imagine people in the B section and further back could understand any of it. The one thing I bet most people caught was his chiding of someone in the pit for smoking a fat joint: “We don’t go for that sort of behavior anymore,” I think he said.

But his mumbling about being so pleased to be back spoiled what could have been an even more effective launch to Sunday’s set. The group’s shadowy entrance, accompanied by the strains of an Ennio Morricone score (yes?), would have been doubly powerful had Sumner not interrupted it with an ok-here-we-go. Instead, the group should have glided straight into the haunting instrumental “Elegia,” which itself was abbreviated to segue into a full-velocity run through “Crystal.”

Regardless, from there they were off and running, rarely letting up for 90 minutes and only once or twice departing from their canon of time-tested classics. Formative singles like “Ceremony” and “Age of Consent” were heartily delivered to delirious reaction early on, while the end of the main set was positively dizzying, increasing in ebullience from “True Faith” and “The Perfect Kiss” to a spot-on “Blue Monday” (far better than at Coachella last time) and a mirror-ball-enhanced roar through “Temptation,” which had people spilling into the aisles to shout “up! down! turn around! please don't let me hit the ground!”

I’ve rarely seen such an amped-up audience at the Greek – only when Radiohead, Pearl Jam or System of a Down plays here. (Also not surprising: Secondhand tickets for this instant sell-out were in the high triple-digits online.) These fans, clearly deeply acquainted with the band’s complete catalog, went mad for virtually everything this first-ever fractured New Order served up, cheering almost as loudly for lesser-knowns like “Your Silent Face” and “5 6 8” (both from 1983’s Power, Corruption & Lies) as they did for anticipated hits.

(Personally, I lost my mind for a minute when Stephen Morris’ snare smack and Sumner’s melancholy melodica kicked off “Love Vigilantes,” a brilliant anti-war piece from 1985’s Low-Lifethat they didn’t play the night before in Oakland. Didn’t faze me at all when the vocalist flubbed his entrance into the final verses.)

Through it all, this version of New Order – reinstating original keyboardist Gillian Gilbert and including additional guitarist Phil Cunningham and new bassist Tom Chapman, from Sumner’s Bad Lieutenant project – performed this nearly sacrosanct ’80s songbook with accuracy and credibility, renewed passion (lots more than they’d exhibited in the past decade) and a gripping visual element that enhanced their live stature without sullying their characteristic mystique. It was such an invigorating force that I easily could have danced in place to another 90 minutes of entirely different favorites.

Which brings me back to Hook, and why this is his loss, no matter which party to this argument is in the right.

New Order always was a machine whose parts were identifiably distinct but hardly irreplaceable. Hook is surely one of the most important bassists of all time, putting forth a vastly imitated, rarely bested style that dominated college-rock in the ’80s and resurfaced en masse with the rise of modern indie-rock at the turn of the century. But don’t kid yourself that he’s an unparalleled master. He isn’t John Entwistle, requiring a virtuoso like Pino Palladino to replace him.

Hook deserves credit for inventing that high-pitched, hard-picked approach so indicative of New Order’s music, but there’s a reason why a hundred other bands resorted to mimicry: It isn’t exactly a hard way to play. Frankly, Morris’ steady yet slippery feel on drums – like Charlie Watts or Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, he’s a unique engine – would be much harder to replace adequately enough to leave this enterprise sounding right.

You could tell just one melodic bass riff into “Ceremony” – flawlessly executed by Chapman, as were all others – that the overwhelming majority of people at the Greek didn’t have the slightest concern that Hook wasn’t here. Unquestionably there would be some noticeable difference were he restored to the fold – true band chemistry should never be underestimated – but everything about this show still felt like a genuine New Order presentation, not just for having a majority of its proper players but also for its visual array.

Granted, not everything was so dazzling. Some bits were suitably atmospheric, like the rubble-filled stairwells and crashing bottles of pills that brought palpable alienation to “Crystal,” or the super psychedelic freak-out that ensued during “Truth Faith.” Other moments aimed for monolithic but didn’t always achieve it so handily: the thumping subwoofer cone for “Temptation” was a simple winner, but the sheets of Rubik’s Cube colors smashing into a New Order logo during “Ceremony” were pretty generic.

Yet, from start to finish, nothing about this show felt like a cash-in tribute to their former selves – which is a lot more than can be said for Hook’s outfit the Light, an ensemble of nobodies that has toured more than once on the reputation of Joy Division, reviving both Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) at L.A. venues over the years, despite Hook being its only genuine member. That’s the thorniest among many issues separating the bassist from his New Order mates.

I’d love to know what he really thinks of them carrying on without him, especially considering the current NO’s willingness to tread into hallowed JD territory as well. But the difference is night and day. No matter how strongly he pulls off his salute, Hook still peddles sketchy nostalgia for the sake of a paycheck as much as he gets to scratch a creative itch, and over the complaints of his old friends. Does he have the right? Sure. Does it do his (or their) legacy any favors? Not really.

On the other hand, what New Order has done – what New Order has always done to varying degrees – is revisit key Joy Division cuts, rather than resort to entire sets of songs no one can sing as strikingly as their originator.

During the main set, Sumner introduced a smartly reworked version of “Isolation” that retained the title mood while expanding the piece’s rhythmic palette. Later, for a “very special encore,” they lovingly memorialized Ian Curtis with two choices: the posthumous single “Atmosphere,” complete with Anton Corbijn’s evocative black-and-white video, and the airy rush of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” sadly repetitious as ever, while the backdrop screen switched first to archival photos of Curtis, then finally a statement: “FOREVER JOY DIVISION.”

That’s all that needed to be said or done. Rarefying the moment, long a trait of New Order’s image-avoiding modus operandi, helps hold the memory of both the man and the band in high regard, rather than trample on it for crasser purposes. They didn’t have to tackle any Joy Division at all; they could have picked more of their own greats – let’s say “Regret,” “State of the Nation” and “Sub-culture” – moved the main-set closing explosion to the encore, and said good night. What they did stage, however – a show that journeyed from their post-suicide struggle to international stardom and back again – made Curtis’ ghost loom all the more spectrally.

I do wish Hook had been in the mix; imagine how much more meaningful the finale might have been. But the unavoidable truth is that he isn’t needed to pull off such a thoroughly believable performance.

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